Crash Twinsanity Analysis

We have received a task to analyse at least three games from different generations of the gaming industry. The first game that I will be talking about is Crash Twinsanity on the PlayStation 2. With the game being developed for the PlayStation 2 , Telltale games had to try to restrict themselves from including too much detail into the game due to the systems memory which resulted in some models being rough with some sharp edges (more noticeable on the eyes and shoulders) as well as some textures looking rather odd in order to save memory space. It’s more powerful than most of the predecessors such as the Nintendo 64 and SEGA Genesis so the quality of the games are much better as well as much prettier environments.

The PS2 controller has 4 directional buttons, 2 analogue sticks, 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder buttons and a pause button. The directional buttons and left analogue stick is often used for character movements with the right analogue stick responsible for camera movement. The face buttons and occasionally shoulder buttons (less so for some games) are the main action buttons such as attacks and utilizing extra abilities. Sometimes the shoulder buttons will be used for camera control along with the right analogue stick. These limitations can result in having to reduce the amount of actions a character can do as well as have other functions tend to be mapped to one button which can mess up the gameplay.

The PEGI age for this game is 3+ although I believe that the game was intended for older audiences with the fact that the main villains Victor an Moritz gets eaten alive by Evil Crash, getting chased by a chef in order to cook Crash and even some sexual jokes in ‘Slip Slide Icecapades’ when you enter the building in the image below. They cartoony look will appeal to the much younger audiences in any gender. I am a bit unsure of how culture would have affected Crash Twinsanity.

This and a chicken house are just randomly in this area as well. This game would be more intended for the hardcore Crash Bandicoot fans as well as teens since there are some dark moments in this game. In the beginning of the game, Cortex stuns Coco by shooting her but you see him cycling through the options and an icon with the love icon and dead icon appear.

This is left unexplained like much other content.

For it’s time in 2004, Crash Twinsanity was a beautiful looking game in terms of overall graphics. The visual effect are really well made with Cortex’s energy blast to Dingodile’s fire from his flame thrower. The animations are also really smooth with a cartoony feel due to some exaggeration and squash and stretch. There are some animations that feel off like when Cortex falls into the water in Totem Hokum. However, the gameplay and story side was rather lacking not only because of the technical qualities of the PS2 but its development. Crash Twinsanity was rushed in development which resulted of most of the story missing key aspects and elements that might have made it more interesting such as an alternative version of Crash’s relatives in the 10th dimension besides just Evil Crash and most people that we encounter in the game such as Dingodile, Madam Amberly and N.Gin be just people that get in the way.

Gameplay wise, this game suffered in some areas. Pushing objects like trigger spheres and bombs where rather clunky, Crash would levitate in the cutscene after the N.Gin boss fight, platforming in 3D would be rather tense as you would be uncertain if you would make a jump and the tutorial wouldn’t tell you about the slide jump nor spin throw resulting in some difficulty when going through levels. And that’s just for Crash. In this game, there are three playable characters. Crash, Dr Neo Cortex and Nina Cortex.

Cortex and Nina are pretty much an after thought in terms of gameplay. They only get one stage each (with Cortex getting small extra sections). Cortex gets to fight one boss on his own then is a second phase in the final boss whilst Nina is only the first phase of the final boss. For the most part, you wouldn’t know nor remember that there are instances where you can play as these two. You mainly play as Crash with Cortex getting dragged along now and again. There is an annoying glitch with Nina where you have to grab hooks in the wall to wall jump and get to the top but when you get to the final hook to swing across, Nina tends to perform a punch in the air rather than grabbing the hook which result in multiple deaths. This glitch makes the final boss aggravating to play.